


A Fiddle of Gold Against Your Soul

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Dark Castle Shenanigans [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, The Devil Went Down To Georgia, chess master Rumpel, dealmaking, dorky lovestruck Rumpel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7400269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the spirit of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," Rumpelstiltskin entertains a young man named John, come to deal for a magical violin. Rumpelstiltskin has seen the outcome, however, and intends to have his fun before moving the chess piece he knows needs to be played for his master plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fiddle of Gold Against Your Soul

He watched the shadow from his laboratory tower window. It was plainly visible for the majority of an hour - until stormclouds overcame the mountain. There were no longer moon nor stars to help the boy sneaking away from his parents’ cottage down in the valley village. A little farther along, Rumpelstiltskin saw a flicker and a lantern come to life, and the shadow reappeared. The boy stayed mostly within the edge of the forest that lined the inclining mountain path. It was quite a trek, and he was doing a passable job of sneaking. Or he might have been, if the sorcerer hadn’t long learned to extend his wards down the road to give himself some warning of approaching intruders.

Rumpelstiltskin had been keeping a weather eye on the boy since he’d felt his name spoken earlier in the day. Twice, as a matter of fact. First from the old man’s lips, and then from his son’s - the first uttered in the passing of knowledge, the second in apprehension. It had only been a matter of time before there came the shudder of a magical boundary being crossed.

He took himself downstairs, out of sight, opening the castle door ahead of the boy just as a clap of thunder rolled over the mountains and the storm began in earnest. The boy wouldn’t have such an easy way back down to the village.

His intruder - and it was interesting, how so many of them found it so difficult to step over the threshold of that first door, yet so easy to snoop right through to the great hall - passed by his hiding place without an inkling of his presence. 

“Rumpelstiltskin!” the boy called, loud and clear, and he looked around.

The boy, tall and strapping, fair hair crushed under a grey cap, had come to his castle door with a violin case in hand and a smile. Rumpelstiltskin had seen this moment. He’d had the visions, puzzled them out. He knew that this moment was important, that it would lead somewhere.

He waited. Lurked beyond the stone door jamb. Enjoyed watching the boy grow antsy and paranoid. He waited until the boy’s eyes were darting to the shadowy corners of the room before entering behind him in a silent puff of magic.

 _“What-do-you-want?”_ Rumpelstiltskin snapped, raising the pitch of his voice to set his intruder’s hair on end.

The boy whirled around, recoiling before he could stop himself. He made a valiant effort at recovery, however, throwing his shoulders back and his chest out. “I’m here to make a deal. You have something I want.”

“Do I, now? And what, pray tell, might that be?”

“A violin. A magical one, and precious. Came from a man named Elijah, they say.”

“‘They’? ‘They’? In all my years, I’ve yet to meet this apparently famous ‘They’ that people continue to credit with information!” Rumpelstiltskin mocked, tittering and wagging his head. “What is _your_ name?”

The boy gave him a cool look. “If you must know-”

“Oh, I must,” he said with a wrinkle of his nose. “After all, you do know mine.”

“John.” The boy swallowed, tilting his head haughtily back to hide it.

He was smug, bold and confident, and it was a mask. A thin one, at that. Rumpelstiltskin recognized the falsity of it right away, and it tickled him, this infant puffing itself up in an attempt to bluff him.

“What, no… Stradivari? Guarneri?” he ridiculed with names the boy had no way of knowing.

“It’s a family name.”

“Of that I’ve no doubt.”

“John Geiger.”

“Ah, _that_ John,” Rumpelstiltskin said in recognition.

The Geigers were luthiers, and the boy before him had inevitably been playing violin since he’d been old enough to hold one properly. It was a curiosity that he’d brought one _with_ him on his quest, however. Rumpelstiltskin hummed, working to assemble fragments of vision.

He circled slowly, strutting, hands clasped behind him. “And what is it that you want with it? You’ve fiddles coming out your ears, do you not?”

“There’s a king…” John began.

Rumpelstiltskin gave him an impatient look when he didn’t go on. “I’ll require a bit more information than that, if you please. _If_ you want a chance at that deal.”

“He’s asked my father for a unique violin,” the boy explained. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his grip on his case handle tightening and relaxing. “I overheard him telling my father that he found a drunk old man in his rose garden and took him in. The man said he’d grant a wish, and when the king made his wish, the old man told him to ask my father for a violin so unique that no one else in any realm could have another and his wish would be granted.”

“Which king?” Rumpelstiltskin asked with a weary façade that wasn’t so much façade as allowing the feeling to conveniently show through.

“Midas. King Midas.”

His interest was suddenly piqued. It was such a _convenient_ in, and one that he could exploit. “Fancy… that…” he enunciated slowly, leaning so that he spoke behind one of the boy’s ears and then the other. “What makes you presume that _I_ have this fabled violin?”

The boy turned to keep him in sight, eyes darting nervously away and back to his form, following as he walked in front of the fireplace. “My father told me. He’s heard you’d one such instrument.”

He came to a halt in front of John, stepping invasively near. “Did he, now? Your dear father tells you of a violin imbued with magical powers, conveniently hidden within the monster’s castle _just_ up the mountain, and you… what? Believe him and come running? Hm?”

Young John hesitated, the cocksureness draining from his face to be replaced with doubt. The boy would have to learn the difficult lesson of believing in his father so completely someday, Rumpelstiltskin predicted, but he supposed that day wouldn’t be today.

He looked John up and down, as if taking his measure. “Being a fiddle-maker’s son, I must suppose you know how to play with some proficiency, do you not?

“I’m the best there’s ever been,” the boy boasted, drawing bluster about him again as he sensed the possibility of being given the deal.

“Well, well, Johnny boy, I’ll tell you what,” Rumpelstiltskin said, dancing a step backward as his face split with a manic grin. “I’ll make you a deal. I fiddle a bit, myself, and if you can best me, well then, you can walk out of the castle free and clear.” He gestured extravagantly toward the great hall doors, setting one foot on its heel. “With your new instrument, of course.”

“How am I meant to trust you to be fair in judging yourself?” John regarded him doubtfully.

“Oh, I am nothing if not _fair.”_ Rumpelstiltskin assured him, a scandalized hand fluttering to his chest before pointing gaily in the air to punctuate his point. “Fair to the letter!”

“And if I lose?” the boy asked.

“Your soul,” he tossed off with an air of nonchalance, cackling with glee when John blanched as pale as his maid’s attempt at porridge. He gave the boy relief with the admission of, “A quip, nothing more. No, I don’t deal in _souls._ Fiddly things, difficult to keep track of.”

John gulped visibly this time, but Rumpelstiltskin wouldn’t allow him _that_ much of a reprieve.

“If you lose, I shall make a new footstool of you! I am in need of a replacement.” The look of merriment on his face melted seamlessly into bloodlust, easily imitated via one of many his curse’s occupants. “It’s always a shame, but backs do _break_ after a while, do they not?” He trilled dramatically over his R, appreciating the renewed sickened expression his remark incited.

It took John a few moments, but he accepted. His head nodded first, before he could make his mouth follow suit. “All right.”

“Excellent!” Rumpelstiltskin chirped, bouncing on his toes with forced glee.

He summoned the golden violin from the castle vault. A case appeared in a plume of crimson smoke on the edge of the hearth, its greenish-black reptile leather scintillating in the candle and fire light. With a twitch of both hands and a wisp of smoke from the latches, the case opened.

He smiled to himself as John took an instinctual step back, but there was a lust in the boy’s eyes. Oh, Johnny _wanted_ that violin. Or, more accurately, his father did. It made Rumpelstiltskin pity the boy’s desperation to please. He had every intention of the boy getting what he wanted. But that didn’t mean he would make it easy.

Removing the bow first, he conjured a piece of smooth rosin for it, amber-colored and fiery. Sparks flew from his fingertips as he rosined the bow, staring John down as he did it. Frighten the boy, put on a satisfactory performance for him, let him feel he’d accomplished something.

“I’ll start the show, hm? And give youth the benefit of going second.” Rumpelstiltskin smirked, lifting the violin and settling the shining instrument against his collarbone. He placed his jaw in the rest, and it warmed to his skin almost immediately. 

He fingered the strings as he began, drawing the bow across, and the violin gave an evil _hiss_ before the first note struck. The music that came forth was raucous and dark, filled with heavy, powerful chords that weighed down the very atmosphere of the room. He watched John as he played. It didn’t take long at all for the gravity of the deal to dawn on the boy. By the time he lifted the bow, the final note pulsing on the air, young John had again gone several shades paler.

Slowly, Rumpelstiltskin lowered the violin down by his side. He waited several beats before gesturing with the golden bow, the glint of it slicing through the air. “You do realize you forfeit if you don’t play?” he said, lending a sneer to his tone.

John set his violin case on the hearth next to Rumpelstiltskin’s, his hands trembling as he unlatched it, and only succeeding to get the case open on his second attempt. He turned back to the sorcerer as he raised the instrument and placed it correctly, fingers and bow hovering above the strings for a moment before he could manage to make them meet.

Meet, however, they did. John began to play, his song high and sweet and pulse-quickening. He created soaring notes, rich and bright, fast and rhythmic enough to make even Rumpelstiltskin itch to keep time to it, and executed a spiccato so rapid that it raised the sorcerer’s eyebrow. The boy’s song sent chills along his skin with its loveliness.

And yet it didn’t surpass his own skill. 

Still, Rumpelstiltskin hung his head as though he’d been beaten, his face somber and laced with a sinister expression. He bowed deeply, providing the boy with the theatrics he’d come for, and made the grand gesture of laying the violin at the boy’s feet.

With the apparent win, John’s smugness returned, redoubling. He said smartly and with a cocky twist of his head, “I did tell you, old imp, I’m the best there’s ever been.”

“That you did,” Rumpelstiltskin allowed, his irritation pinched even through his amusement at the boy.

“If you ever want to try again, I’d be willing to let you barter another deal,” John said with a smirk, leaning to pick up the instrument. He did not, however, take his eyes off the sorcerer.

As if he’d been shamed by being out-talented, Rumpelstiltskin feigned, “Oh, I do believe I’ve had enough.”

John quickly placed both violins in their respective cases, and he hurried out to make his way home through sheets of pouring rain with them. 

Once the boy had gone, Rumpelstiltskin dropped his own bravado, and it was a weary and melancholy smile that ghosted over his face. Another domino set up to fall. Another step closer to his son.

The next individual of royal blood to touch the instrument, far more unprotected than he, would fall to the curse that the dealt for violin had been enchanted to impart. He knew precisely to whom it would go, now. It would lead to a golden knight, an almost-marriage, a robber-princess, and ultimately, to an endlessly stubborn blonde girl in a red jack whose name he never could see.

Rumpelstiltskin summoned his own far more nondescript, wooden violin and horsehair bow to his hands and played, the notes resonating off the stone of the great hall. He played a tune to a song likely not _meant_ to be a lullaby, but that he’d sung to Bae and that his Aunties had sung to him when the world was so much younger. 

The song ended, and he heard an, _“Oh…”_ come soft and breathy from behind him. He spun on his heel to find his maid’s mouth ajar and her brow creased in emotion, and for a moment, he was adrift. He nearly stumbled over himself at the sight of her with tears on her cheeks.

“And what’s the matter with you?” he snapped, but there wasn’t much venom to his words. There wasn’t enough in him to dredge it up. “I suppose it can’t be dust in your eyes, little as you pick up a cloth.”

“I didn’t know you could play violin,” Belle said, ignoring his jibe.

He looked down at the fiddle in his hand, almost having forgotten it was there. “Well. One must amuse oneself. Three hundred some-odd years, I couldn’t spin _every_ hour of the day.”

“Your song. It was…” She shook her head, looking at his hands.

 _“Haunting?”_ he supplied, putting on a broad, false grin.

She stepped closer. “Sad.”

His smile faltered in his startlement at the nearness of her. Her eyes lifted to meet his, and there was a long look between them before he forced himself to take a step away from her.

“What do you want?” he asked, and the question was far quieter than he meant it to come out. Something about the slip of a girl disarmed him, unhinged him.

“I thought I heard voices. It’s why I came down.” She shrugged, tilting her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Only a visitor, up from the village. He’s gone now, dearie. No need to worry about tea - not that you were in a hurry,” he said with a carefully disapproving look. 

“Would- would you play something else?” Belle asked almost hesitantly, and he was glad when she turned away from him. Less glad when she walked right over to his table and boosted herself to sit upon the edge of it, fixing her blue eyes on him once more.

Rumpelstiltskin wanted to deny her. He wanted to tell her to go to her room, to _clean_ something, for gods’ sakes. But the way she looked at him played expertly at his heartstrings. He lifted the violin and bow.


End file.
